Soils & Agriculture

America’s farms and ranches provide food, fuel, and fiber for a growing population, but this productivity often comes with environmental costs: Fertilizer and pesticides running into your local creek or favorite fishing hole. Fewer waterfowl – and more flooding – due to drained wetlands and plowed-up grasslands. Blankets of algae cover lakes large and small. Chances are that you’ve seen agriculture’s impact firsthand.

The Izaak Walton League has been involved in agriculture policy since 1937, when we called for a national program to retire fields in mountainous areas from agricultural use. We’ve come a long way since then in understanding the impact of our agricultural system on soil, waters, and wildlife – and how to lessen those impacts. With your help, we can promote conservation in agriculture policy and on-the-ground practices.

Healthy Soil, Healthy Water
IWLA 2018 Farm Bill Priorities

At our national convention in July, the League introduced our conservation priorities related to the 2018 Farm Bill. READ MORE >>

Local

State and federal regulations may seem like a lengthy, jumbled mess of words on paper, but these are real programs and policies that affect real people. Talking with conservation-minded producers in your backyard is one of the best strategies to build a strong, informed network on agriculture policy issues.

State

States are great laboratories for innovative conservation policies. From stream-side buffers to strategies aimed at reducing nutrient pollution, state policies are one of the best ways effect change on the agricultural landscape. There are also opportunities to influence state-level implementation of national policies.

​National

Most national agriculture policy – including conservation – stems from the Farm Bill. The 2014 Farm Bill provides more than $57 billion for conservation over 10 years. But that won’t stop Congress from cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from these programs each year. We need your help to ensure farmers have the resources they need to protect natural resources.